MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The United Kingdom's exit from the European Union could weaken the positions of the Swiss financial center and stall negotiations on a wide range of trade deals between Bern and Brussels, a spokesperson for the Swiss Private Bankers Association told Sputnik on Monday.
“We are afraid that a Brexit would weaken the EU. It would work against the Swiss financial center, as Europe is its main commercial partner. Switzerland needs a strong EU,” Fabienne Bogadi said.
On Friday, the Swiss Private Bankers Association held a seminar devoted to possible implications of Brexit with most participants predicting many hurdles for Bern in case the UK nationals choose to leave the EU.
Being a non-EU member-state, Switzerland is still negotiating a wide range of bilateral agreements with Brussels, among which the access to the single market is the most important one. That issue has yet to be resolved with negotiations being put on hold until after Britain's referendum.
"In case of a Brexit, the negotiations with Switzerland would no longer be a priority for Europe, and would recede into the background. And, on the contrary, if there was no Brexit, we could hope to get into negotiations soon," Fabienne Bogadi explained.
UK citizens are set to vote on June 23 in a referendum on the country's EU membership, after British Prime Minister David Cameron and the leaders of the 27 other EU member states reached a deal in February to grant the United Kingdom a special status within the bloc.
According to the latest poll carried out by YouGov for The Sunday Times newspaper, the number of Brexit supporters amounted to 43 percent of the respondents with those preferring the country to stay in the bloc accounting for 42 percent.
